Interview: Marina Ljubenovic & Veles Sense. Helping vineyards stay healthy

The interview with Marina Ljubenovic, CTO of Veles Sense from Serbia.

Veles Sense offers AI and drone-based vineyard stress detection for sustainable winemaking.

You can listen to the episode with Marina Ljubenovic on EmpoWomen Podcast:

Or read the interview.

Pitching Veles Sense

In Veles Sense, we are developing AI-based solutions for stress detection in vineyards. Why is this important? There are different causes of stress in vineyards, including diseases or lack of nutrition and water, and they all cause a significant loss in yield.

And recently, due to climate change, we also can see a shift in the seasons, which creates additional problems for vineyard owners. And they are now starting to search for tools to help them mitigate these problems. 

In Veles Sense, we are developing several solutions by using a two-way perspective. So we are using cameras that see beyond visible light mounted on the drones combined with close-range cameras and experts in the field. And technically, this is important why we use cameras that see beyond visible light, because as such, we can detect sample changes before you can see them in the field. 

Currently, we are based in Serbia, and we collaborated with 16 wineries. And our main markets are Italy, Portugal, Spain, and France, because these four countries in total have 36% of worldwide regions. And all of them have slightly different problems. And we are offering a robust solution to try to tackle all these problems together. 

Until now, we raised more than 300,000 through grants. And now we are starting to search for investments to continue our development.

Veles Sense Origins

I have a PhD in digital image processing. And for more than 18 years, I worked with digital images, with restoration images. And let’s say more than 10 years out of this, I worked with images that go beyond visible light. 

These images are useful in many areas, but recently, we noticed that they have a huge impact in agriculture. Because agriculture is a traditional job. I mean, for many years, the people were relying on what they learned from their parents and their grandparents. 

And now the challenges are becoming, let’s say, more and more difficult to tackle. Mostly because of the climate change, because of the shift in temperature. New diseases are coming, the temperature fluctuates, and the lack of water is severe in Europe. We know about Europe, but it’s probably all over the world.

And now they started to look more and more to digital solutions. So we saw the opportunity. So we saw how we can combine my practical knowledge with the opportunity in the market. And we started at the end of 2022, as it’s important to mention, as a family-owned startup. So it’s my husband, his sister, and me. We are the core team, two economists and computer scientists together.

When we started a company, a business, I was pregnant with our first kid and I’m now pregnant with the second. So for almost three years I wasn’t really able to drink. So I’m avoiding saying I’m a wine lover.

One of the ways in our business, in Agritech, one of the ways to build the relationship with the customers, with end users is to really spend some time with them. And in our case, that’s quite nice because we can also try quite nice wines. And you can be outside. I think that’s a double benefit.

Why wine industry? 

I think a very important piece for many startups that start is to start something new. So how do we define the problem or where we look into an area that we would like to explore?

When we started talking about the startup, we were looking into agriculture in general. And then we were starting to look, I mean, which type of, let’s say, crops or plants is most interesting for us. 

In viticulture, there are two important aspects. From the technological or technical point of view, wines are quite challenging. If you look at them from above, you just see like 20 or 30% of the plant. If you look at them from the side, you again don’t see the other side of the plant and don’t see the top of the plant. So technologically speaking, if you want to do imaging of the plant or some kind of sensing of the plant, you need to figure out a smarter solution or combination of some existing solutions. And this is challenging for me in a technological sense.

In a business sense, vineyard owners and people who are growing grapes, they’re not selling grapes. They’re selling wine, which is a more expensive product. So usually they will have more money to invest in growing or developing their product. On the other hand, they are not changing their crops every year. So if the wine is older, in terms of a plant, if it’s older, it produces more quality wines. So they want to preserve what they have. They don’t want to remove it every third or four years.

This is true for all the fruit, but then this is the additional, let’s say, price of a wine that is quite important compared with the price of the grapes.

The technology behind

It took us almost two years to finish the technology. Our first product was detection of a very specific and very dangerous disease by using multispectral cameras on a drone, which means cameras then see visible light and then near-infrared spectral region.

And this is important because if you have even a slight change in chlorophyll when the plant is under stress, it can be detected in a near-infrared spectral region. So our technology is taking images from the drone. 

We managed to mark, we collected more than two terabytes of data, and we collaborated with more than six specialists to mark this disease in these images.

And then we trained the neural network to detect the changes automatically. These changes, because we see a little bit beyond visible light, can be detected several days before you can see them with the naked eye. The core is a neural network, an artificial intelligence-based system. But I think the most important part, the crucial part, is data. The data that we collected and annotated.

Software, hardware or both? 

It’s a software, it’s pure software. The hardware that we use is existing hardware, existing drones and we can use different drones if they capture this spectral region that we are interested in. So our solution is fully software-based. 

Business Model

For now it’s as a service, as subscription-based. In Serbia where we are based we do our own imaging with our drones. Abroad, we have collaboration with drone service providers. So with someone who will take images for us and then we analyze the images and we are sending the report to the user.

So what users see, we call it a user-friendly report. So he doesn’t necessarily need to know about technology. He doesn’t even need to have a drone. We can organize data collection. And then what he receives is a report telling what is the problem in the vineyard. Is there a disease or some other causes of stress? 

External partnerships

It’s by demand. There exists, especially in Italy and France, companies that have core business doing drone imaging by demand. So what we need to do, we need to define the parameters of the flight of the drone. We send them parameters and they will collect images for us. It’s not just for our company. This is something that is quite well known in agritech because this is something how you can scale your business. I mean, not to rely on you collecting data, but you need to rely on partnership in order to collect data with you.

Benefits of using the services of Veles Sense

For our estimation, for the specific disease, the esca detection, we can save farmers up to 1,060 euros per hectare. Of course, this depends on what a farmer decides to do with the plant once we detect disease. We give some recommendations, but again, the final decision is on the farmer. And once he decides, the savings can be up to 1,060 euros per hectare.

Entrepreneurial Challenges

I will divide on business and on the technological aspects.

From the personal aspect being a family-owned business it has its own challenges but it also makes the business comfortable. It’s also part of our life. I mean it’s not just that we go to work and at a very specific time we will talk about work. No, we will talk about business or some ideas even when we go out and have fun so it’s incorporated in our life and this at least for me makes it less stressful. Maybe it’s not everyone’s experience but for me it’s less stressful because then we are brainstorming and we are having ideas and we are going forward. 

Of course the other side is challenging. Both incomes that are coming are related to the company so as a family you need to think about this more carefully whether you are collecting money, raising money, or you are going up for grants. And this is just a planning procedure. 

Me being pregnant already the second time means that the person who is in the field and collecting data is usually my husband. And this was a little bit challenging because he’s not a technical person. I mean, he’s a certified drone pilot, but he’s an economist. So if I’m not in the field to look at the results immediately,

It takes a little bit longer to collect proper data. And this was the biggest challenge at the beginning. So in the first season, we made a lot of mistakes about data collection, data annotation. And then of course, when we had time to think about it in the second season, we corrected these mistakes. 

Our business is very reliant on a season. So what we do in June, July, August, that’s it. So if you make a mistake, you need to wait for next year. This is just a challenge of agri-tech. So it’s how it is. Other areas have some other challenges. And this was probably the biggest, the biggest challenge. We made a lot of mistakes in the first year, and then we needed to wait for a year in order to correct these mistakes. And in a startup business, that can be a lot, just a waiting period.

On the business side, as I mentioned, agriculture in general, viticulture included, is a traditional job. So you need to build your relationship in person. There is no digital marketing. And you are present, you are building your image, but basically you cannot rely on digital marketing. You need to rely on going into vineyards, talking with people, going into wine fairs, talking with people and building relationships. And this is slower by default. But, once you manage to do it properly, then it’s fine. And now we are in a moment when people are recognizing us and reacting quite positively.

Customer Acquisition Strategies

So mostly what we did so far, we collaborated with the viticulture experts and agronomists, and then they recommended us to vineyard owners. They already have some base of vineyard owners that they know or collaborated with, and then they will say, okay, there is this company, they do this thing and introduce us. This was crucial for us to make first contact with, let’s say, people in the field, agronomies, plant protection specialists. We have collaborated with the viticulture expert professor from the university and are growing. 

The other way is going to these wine markets. So you approach people, some of them react, of course, positively, some of them not so much, which is quite normal. 

The third way is to contact wine associations. It can be in your own country, it can be in other target countries, and just approach them, present what you are doing, and then together you can, let’s say, push forward.

What is interesting for agri-tech and our competitors, for example, we don’t see them as real competitors, we see them as partners, because it’s most important for us that we all promote technology towards vineyard owners and then it’s much easier for us to push our product for all of us. We know most of our competitors in person, we met them. Usually when we talk about our products if there is some compatible product we will also promote, which is usually not the case in other areas but in our area this is something that is quite important. So doing the marketing for all of us, for the technology in general to be accepted more easily. 

The entrepreneurship aspect of running Veles Sense

I mentioned that we are planning to go to different countries. Now we are only in Serbia. Currently, we don’t have any sales in different countries.

We started with the national grants. In Serbia, there are national grants, smaller and bigger. That will help you even when you have only an idea. So not a product, just an idea. And this is how we started.

We joined accelerators. Some of them are coming with some small grants. Some of them are pure accelerators with mentoring.

You start like this. You buy your first equipment. You learn a couple of things or a lot of things in a small amount of time. And then you start collecting data. You start talking with people.

Before we even started to create our first product, we started to talk to figure out what is really the biggest challenge that we are able to tackle. Once we have enough confirmations, we started developing and then won grants. Until now, I think it was seven grants, some of them national and then some of them European.

Every time when we are building a solution, I can do this mostly by myself in a technical sense. But then a lot of things that are done in the field need to be supported by experts. And this is something that you need money for. With grants, you can plan this.

What we notice is that it is important not to rush, if you don’t have money at the very beginning. So not to do three things at the same time, but focus on one that is most promising and then build your solution carefully around this idea. And then, of course, you will have more ideas and then you will push.

Once when you started with grants, it’s like a train. So you jump in and then it’s going. 

In one moment, you need to decide whether you are going towards investors. And this depends on a company, depends on area, your journey, depends on your traction, of course. I mean, if you have a lot of traction, maybe you don’t need so much money.

But again, for us, it was mostly grants to build the product. And now we are starting to look for real traction and then investors. And we hope it will scale significantly.

The role of accelerators and other business support organizations

It was crucial for us to start. At the beginning, something that we say to other people that are thinking about starting a business or a startup is to start. So until you jump into the pool, you really don’t know the problems. We all tend to idealize the market, the product, what we have. Once when you really jump into it, and there are a lot of small challenges that are taking time, but you need to deal with them in order to push your product.

In this sense, accelerators are quite nice because you hear experts, but you also hear other people. I mean, other people that are in your own situation. And of course, they may have other challenges, but in the end, I mean, it’s better to hear other people failings and then not make the same mistake. You will make mistakes, of course, but you also can learn quite a lot from other people’s mistakes. This is probably the most valuable thing that you have from the accelerators.

The other thing is the network itself. You are meeting people, you are getting some friends. And then every next time, every next project is easier because you maybe know someone, someone recommended you. So this is how you build.

It’s pretty much the same in research in the sense of networking. I mean, when you do research projects.

EmpoWomen Experience

EmpoWomen experience is twofold. The business part, especially the part related with the investment, is a huge opportunity for us to hear from people who are really investors, who also have startups. This is just something that you cannot hear in smaller accelerators or national accelerators. These are really like global stories. 

Again, it is useful hearing struggles and success stories of your peers. It’s amazing every time someone has a success, you also feel like enthusiastic about your own story. 

The crucial other thing is that now the EmpoWomen is helping us also with financial support is to develop a new service for the water stress detection in vineyards which is probably the most crucial thing now with changes in climate and temperature. This is something that we see more and more as a problem in vineyards. And this is something that vineyard owners are complaining a lot about. We use the financial support to develop a new service that can be huge for us.

I learned about the program via LinkedIn. We saw a post about the opportunities for women in deep tech. And one of the opportunities was EmpoWomen.

The biggest appreciation in EmpoWomen program

Yes, I would say there are two. 

So one is, again, just a chance to develop a new service. I’m not sure that we’d be able to do it without the support.

The other big thing is that we had the opportunity to go to quite big wine fairs and to talk with more than 30 vineyard owners. One was in Italy, the second one was in Croatia. Croatia is our neighboring country, so it’s quite nice.

For us at this moment, this was quite important, and this was empowered by EmpoWomen.

Plans for the future

Basically, what we are looking for from the next season is to definitely enter another market. And this is something that cannot be done online. So we need a partner in the field, a local partner that speaks the language. Probably our first markets would be Italy or Portugal.

Why these two countries? Because we lived both in Portugal and Italy. We lived in Portugal for three years and in Italy for more than four. And we speak languages. We know some mentality. So probably this would be the next step. From the business point of view, wine countries, good options. 

We hope that every second season will give us a new market. We need to build it carefully, not to spend our resources too fast. So it needs to be country by country. We already have a plan on how to do it. And we already have some connections.

What inspires you to keep doing?

It’s a personal question, but it is related to personality. I am by nature quite pragmatic. I’m quite aware that having a startup is a risky deal. It’s not guaranteed that you will succeed.

At the same time, by doing these steps, you are learning a lot and you are making yourself prone to succeed. Maybe not with this product or with this story, maybe with some other story. But I think that you need to walk the walk in order to have some success.

In our situation, we like the area where we are. I’m talking about agri-tech. We think there are a lot of opportunities in agri-tech. We are now meeting a lot of technology companies that are working in agriculture, also end users. We see it as a positive experience.

Maybe it’s related to my pragmatism. It is, I think, also advice for other people. Even if your business that you are in now is not succeeding, it doesn’t mean that you didn’t learn a lot. And maybe the next business or next venture, even if it’s not your own, will not be successful.

Vision of success for Veles Sense

First is to have really reliable and robust solutions that can scale fast. It takes time to build, but that’s important. That is not a solution that can work only locally, but to be relatively easy to go globally.

When we have this type of solution, then a big dream would be to incorporate ourselves into some bigger software or it can even be a hardware. I mean, if it’s a drone hardware company, so into some bigger story and offer a solution for vineyard owners.

So we are the one that’s saying, “OK, we do vineyards and we are part of a bigger picture”.

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